Bring the Legions Home. Now.

Hillary Billary Dock
The wench should watch the clock
The times they are a’changin’
The Pentagon runs amok
~ Milton

I fear that I shall have to take the helm of the nation, to see that the ship of state founder not on vast shoals of idiots. (This is a full-service column.) You may ask, “Fred, why do you think yourself competent to do this?” To which I reply, Consider what we have. Do you prefer assured disaster to a gleam of hope?

Now, to work.

The military: My first step will be to discard strategic imbecility as national policy, thus unemploying a great many strategic imbeciles. Henceforth the armed forces will concern themselves with defending the United States – not Korea, Japan, Afghanist-freaking-stan for god’s sake, nor Europe nor the back side of the moon nor the nether reaches of the Crab Nebula. Just America. You know, that place between Canada and Mexico.

Now, how much military to we need to defend America, as distinct from remote galaxies and places no one in his right mind can spell? Very little. To invade the US properly, you need a border with it, which means Canada, which doesn’t want the US, and Mexico, which doesn’t need an army to get it. The other way to invade is with a Shores of Iwo Jima fleet with some manner of John Wayne on it, being fiercely inarticulate and photogenic. No other country has, is building, or wants such a fleet, and if they did land-based aircraft would make a gorgeous barbecue out of it way the hell and gone out to sea. We don’t really need a navy at all, actually, navies being at best obsolescent and, in our case, usually getting us in trouble. These days, the fleet chiefly looks ridiculous threatening places that pay no attention to it.

Afghanistan: I would apply the exit strategy enunciated by the great James P. Coyne, who taught Clausewitz everything the old Kraut knew. The strategy is, “OK, on the plane. Now.” The simplicity is breathtaking, its effectiveness certain. We’ve got no business being there, we’re killing people who don’t need killing, and nothing good can come of it.

Iraq: See above. Further, I will withdraw from South Korea, Japan, and NATO, on the grounds that they either have no enemies or can defend themselves perfectly well. NATO in particular only involves us in disaster, or we involve it in disaster, and I see no point in continuing to breast feed it.

Next, I will give the navy three months to get anything it profoundly values out of Guantanamo, where we have no business being, and then lift the embargo, which is an expression of adolescent temper. I will then treat Cuba as what it is, an island of people no worse than any other, who do not need stupid mistreatment by a large bratty neighbor. This would improve relations with Latin America, a good idea since we are decreasingly able to behave with normal meddlesomeness.